THE ATTITUDE OF DENTISTS' APPROACHES TOWARDS PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY AND TREATMENT OF DENTAL CARIES

Objective: It was aimed to determine the changes in dentists' approaches and their knowledge level towards preventive dentistry and treatment of dental caries. Material and Methods: Two different questionnaires were conducted on different times face to face. While the main survey was carried out in 2010 with 200 dentists practicing in Istanbul, the supporting survey was also applied in 2024 with 414 dentists attending 2024 FDI World Dental Congress. The data were collected and analyzed statistically. Results: The dentists who participated in 2010 were born between 1951-1960 (29%) and they were working mostly in dental offices (81%) for 20-30 years (30.5%). In the supporting questionnaire, mostly consist of young dentists who were born between 1991-2000 (61.1%) and were working for 0-10 years (72.5%). Most of them were specialists (55.2%) and doctorates (33.8%) working in dentistry faculties (33.8%) or private outpatient clinics (25.4%). In the time interval between the two questionnaires, the benefit, value and necessity of preventive dentistry for the public have decreased from 90% to 60%. Conclusion: It was found that the scientific nature and effectiveness of preventive dentistry became questionable. Although traditional approaches to questions that determined the level of knowledge decreased, the answers to questions that examined the level of knowledge in detail were not known by the dentists who responded the questionnaire in 2024. It can be concluded that there is no significant change in dentists' knowledge levels and attitudes towards preventive dentistry over a period of approximately 15 years. This result may be correlated to the lack of education of dentists, the rapidly growing number of dental faculties and the further spread of specialization.